Thomas Johnson III

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Thomas Johnson III

thomas_johnson_iii@arrcay.7t4.us

Systems Engineer

Active: 3 months ago

Location:: Home Office Space

Homepage:: https://www.7t4.us

Identities:

7t4
https://www.7t4.us
Codeberg
https://codeberg.org/7t4
Github
https://github.com/7t4

Thomas Johnson III

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 06:35:53 -0500 last edited: Sat, 25 Jan 2025 09:49:03 -0500 from ArrCay

One of the greatest impacts that DOGE could have, would be eliminating Micro$oft (and practically all other proprietary softwares) on all fed.gov computer systems.

Putting an end to the use of M$ software, which shouldn't be on any system where security and reliability are concerns to begin with, would be a fairly large long-term budget cut. Not just on the stupid proprietary software licensing fees, but all the extra maintenance/admin IT personnel (including some useless managers in the middle) required to keep the insecure, unreliable crap software running with bubblegum and proprietary duct tapes.

Steve Bannon on GETTR : Can’t Have This ‘Bait and Switch’— DOGE Committed to the President a minimum of $1 Trillion of real spending cuts this year on a $6...

The rebranding of a former White House digital office into the new Department of Government Efficiency signals its potential limits, budget experts said.

While the DOGE office is limited as far as direct impact to budget cutting measures which rest on the shoulders of Congress, computer/network/technology systems have become the backbone of the entire regulatory bureaucracy. Improving it potentially has very broad, sweeping effects on overall efficiency; from citizen impacts down to DC.
For those lacking in civics education, and how the American government system was founded, that is the proper order - the citizen(s) are at the top of the pyramid, fed.gov is at the bottom. Contrary to popular belief.

The inefficiences in government bureaucrary and red-tape practices certainly predate the implementation of computer technology. Unfortunately, many of those same practices infected the IT field. I saw it firsthand running the IT dept. for a school district back in the 90's. It's absurd how computer tech, which is supposed to (and can) make things faster/easier/more efficient, gets misused and bastardized into such badly implemented solutions because of bureaucratic stupidity.

The continued use of practically all proprietary software, particularly Micro$oft products, is one of the greatest SNAFU's in the bureaucracy-infected IT field. The Windows OS outlived it's usefulness on any serious or 'critical' computer system by the dawn of the 21st century. From around year 2000 to now, the only real legitimate reason to use M$ products is for games and TPS reports. Applications where security and reliability are pretty low priorities; basically falling on the "it would be nice to have" list.

There's a reason Windows doesn't show up on ITIC's Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey. It's a notoriously unreliable and insecure OS. It costs more to maintain/keep running and make acceptably (barely) secure than it's worth. Not even counting the potential losses when it inevitably goes down and/or is breached. The top corp's might accept that liability risk and additional IT support cost on internal desktop systems where the so-called "ease of use" appears to outweigh costs or perceived difficulties of training and/or employing more competent personnel; but at the very least, their server systems don't run Windows.

For many of the same reasons, no .gov entity should be running Windows on any computer system.

I'd go further and say no proprietary software should be running on any .gov system. All .gov systems should run open source (fully auditable) software. This is not as much a public transparency issue as it is a security issue. Proprietary code can contain all sorts of unknown security holes, backdoors, etc. And a .gov or '3rd party' auditor to approve a proprietary software for use can always be bought - clearly the business of political favors, preferred contracts, and other corrupt practices in .gov are alive and well. Which is another reason "only open source software" should be a requirement on .gov systems. Not only does it free up billions or more in tax-dollars spent on proprietary licensing fees (and the additional IT support costs), it cuts down on avenues for corruption.

Thomas Johnson III

Sun, 29 Dec 2024 22:34:25 -0500 last edited: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 02:52:45 -0500 from ArrCay

Since the 90's, I've advocated the use of open source software for many reasons. One of those reasons is self-reliance, or independence from [insert BigTechMegaCorp here].

Related to that is security, which I mean in a broad sense to include personal data privacy, online safety, fully auditable code (unlike proprietary software), etc.

IT/Computer/Network/Systems/Cyber- Security is a balance of risks.
A simplified equation:
more knowledge/control = less risks
and vice versa.

For softwares (including servers and related network services) to best meet such goals of security, they should be run on the end users' own hardware/system. And maintenance/adminstration should be done by the same end user(s), or otherwise under their full control/discretion.

I'm not sure if the whole "cloud" and "[xyz]-As-a-Service" marketing hype was just another step or went hand in hand with the outsource/off-shore movement in corporate world, and the commoditization in the IT industry. [Run-on. hanging participle? Rambling, non-sequitur? Incomplete thought for another day... Eh, whatever. Not fixing it now. Anyways...]

My opinion is everyone should be self-hosting; using their own server(s) for social media/blog/website and all other "cloud"/online services they use.

Or, since not everyone can setup/run their own servers, at least use the expertise of their local IT co. or independent tech guru to implement a solution.

All the services provided by bigtechs are available at the independent or small community level, and often at better quality levels using the exact same or better software/hardware solution.

An example with social media; the tech to interconnect thousands of individual-run servers (millions of users), running dozens of different social media platforms as if they belonged to the same network, has been around for many years now. Truth social and Gab were built on such a platform [Mastodon] but they are closed off systems that don't connect with any others. Meta, the fecesbook co., has been testing Threads (for data-mining, ad-injection and how to profit from a network they have no control of; no doubt), which is another platform that does connect (somewhat) to others.

More details on social media platforms can be found in the What is ArrCay? Help file

"But with BigTechMegaCorp I can register today and it's free."
In almost all cases, it's not really free. It's a barter exchange. You are handing over your data (personal, demographic, intellectual property aka created content, etc.) - 'your' account is on their server(s), so it really belongs to them. Additionally you are usually agreeing to be subjected to targeted advertising or otherwise having your data sold to third parties. So you are generally 'paying' something in addition to being used for maximizing their ad or other revenue sources. Then there's the less obvious "bigger picture" issues like 'what else does bigtechmegacorp do?' 'does their revenue go towards x, y, or z social/political/etc. interests?' Etc. Etc.

So is your time, data privacy/security, control/ownership of your intellectual property/created content, etc. worth the actual services and server resources (bandwidth, processing, storage) provided?

Probably not, in all reality. Particularly considering that most people undervalue their own time. And in the case of posting/uploading content: many fail to recognize that their creativity, personal knowledge/experience, and contribution has real worth.

On the other hand, I'll go out on a limb and guess that providing your own server resources and administration is either; a) not in your skills repetoire; or b) not in the budget to buy/rent the hardware, any additional internet connection/bandwidth, and the personal time and/or trusted tech support dedicated to just the services you use.

Surely there must be something in between becoming a tech nerd with a server rack at home, and just giving bigtechs full control of my tech life!?

As with many things in life, there are options [shades of gray, a spectrum]...

Get in touch for further discussion.
...and don't call me Shirley.

Thomas Johnson III

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 20:06:07 -0400 from ArrCay

Dominion is trying to save face in light of recent issues with their overpriced crap machines.

Of course it's all BS. Their machines use Windows.

That pretty much says it all. An OS that is notoriously insecure and unreliable. Windows does not even appear on the ITIC Global Server Hardware,
Server OS Reliability Report/Survey for good reason. The only reason to use Windows is for playing games and writing TPS reports - things where nobody really cares that much about reliability or security. It does not belong on any "critical" system - like the ones revealed not long ago in the crowdstrike debacle. I would argue it has no place in any .gov computer system at all - a related topic for another day...
Setting the Record Straight: Facts About Dominion - Dominion Voting Systems

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS ABOUT DOMINION Dominion is focused on supporting our customers who administer U.S. elections. We are closely monitoring claims around the 2024 election. We strongly encourage people to rely upon verified, credible sources of election information – sources that can explain the many layers of physical, operational, and technical safeguards that ... Read more

It appears that on their systems they leave normal desktop apps like antivirus software installed, as well as database admin tools. And their system uses MS SQL database with some overly complex proprietary software interface for the simple process of recording/counting ballots.

So there's no way to audit the entire software system, from the proprietary OS, to the database system used, to the proprietary user interface. And I would guess that the programming is cobbled together by code monkeys that work for bananas.

Of course a cheaper, more secure, fully auditable (all open source software - a custom linux or BSD OS) voting machine system could be made. Hell, I could probably throw a prototype together within a few months even though I'm not much of a UI (user interface) programmer.

But the fact remains that no machine is really 100% secure or reliable. So the idiots in legislatures [that likely received financial benefits to do so] should have never approved the use of machines in elections to begin with.

Paper ballots, hand counted remains the most secure, most reliable, actually auditable, and apparently the faster method of vote tabulation.